Economy and biodiversity, a marriage for the best! - Interview with Sophie Ménard, head of the Biodiversity Economy Mission at CDC Biodiversité.

After starting her career as a researcher in environmental economics, Sophie Ménard wanted to move towards a more action-oriented position! In 2019, she decided to join the CDC Biodiversité teams within the Research and Innovation Department. Her field of expertise allows her to work on economic models as well as on the development of tools, or the operational implementation of actions with the territories, in cooperation with the various CDC Biodiversité departments and all scientific, public, private, associative and citizen partners. We met Sophie Ménard to better understand the challenge that biodiversity represents for the business economy and the concrete actions that the latter can put in place to better coexist.

What do you do at CDC Biodiversité?

CDC Biodiversité is a private subsidiary of Caisse des Dépôts that was created in 2008. This subsidiary was born from the idea that public and private economic players must be supported to help them apply the 1976 law. This law translates into a legal obligation for any economic player that has an impact on protected species to avoid, reduce and compensate for this influence. Before launching a project, a company must conduct an impact study because it will have to demonstrate that it has avoided affecting biodiversity as much as possible. If there are residual impacts, the economic player must demonstrate that it has sought to compensate for them. The solutions proposed by CDC Biodiversité are based on a multidisciplinary team made up of scientists, engineers and project managers with extensive experience in engineering and ecological management. The CDC Biodiversité team is spread across a network of agencies as close as possible to the projects. We therefore offer throughout the territory all the skills necessary for the technical and financial management of actions in favor of biodiversity over the long term.

What is the difference between acting for the climate and acting in favor of biodiversity?

The difference between these two actions already begins with a good understanding of the concepts of biodiversity and climate emergency. Historically, biodiversity has attracted interest before climate, because biodiversity is something very complex to understand wherever we are on the planet. On the other hand, to talk about climate, we have "the tonne of carbon equivalent" which allows us to talk about climate change and its causes. International arenas will be able to talk more precisely about the climate with quantified objectives. For biodiversity, there were no quantifiable objectives to set for companies and States, we just knew that it had to be preserved. It was only from the 1990s that economists tried to give a value to biodiversity to show that its destruction costs humanity. Companies then became aware of the importance of preserving biodiversity through measurements, evaluations and metrics. This is where extra-financial reporting appeared: companies are asked to present all their actions in favor of biodiversity.

What are the main issues of biodiversity and why should we tackle them?

I would like to go back to the 5 main factors of biodiversity erosion , which have been highlighted by the IPBES . These 5 factors of pressure of anthropogenic origin have impacts on biodiversity that can lead to our extinction.

First, we have changes in land and sea use, which are linked to our daily behaviors. In France, the primary factor in the erosion of biodiversity and soil change is housing. For example, when you want to build your individual house on areas that were previously agricultural, natural areas, forests, etc. Every day, this involves choices since real estate developers are only responding to individual aspirations in a certain way. It is supply and demand that must respond to each other and evolve at the same time.

Then, we have the direct exploitation of resources. In particular, with the extraction of a non-renewable resource that will then be used to build our computers, telephones, cars... If we were in a circular economy logic, we would probably need to use these non-renewable resources less.

The third factor in the erosion of biodiversity is climate change. For a long time, this link between the two concepts was ignored and finally the IPBES showed that they are closely linked, because one depends on the other and has an influence on the other. For example, if there are fewer trees, there will be less carbon sequestration and there will be more climate change. And conversely, if global warming increases, we will have an increase in ocean acidification and biodiversity that will disappear.

The fourth point is pollution of all kinds (chemical, atmospheric, etc.). Let's take an example, if you look at the processing of jeans, there are many chemicals that are used and then released into rivers and seas. All this pollution has a very significant impact on biodiversity.

The fifth point is invasive exotic species. In our gardens, we may find it pretty to put bamboo. Except that bamboo is spreading at an incredible speed, taking the place of other endemic species. The same with the tiger mosquito, imported thanks to containers that cross the planet for food needs.

The core of your business is economics. Do you think things are changing in sustainable finance?

Yes, over the past year, I find that many things are changing, particularly on a European scale. Acting or financing activities that are favorable to biodiversity is now seen as something positive. We see this with the European Green Taxonomy , which explains that there is some financing that is detrimental to the climate. We see that European institutes are doing the same thing with biodiversity. I think we can hope that tomorrow, companies that will extract nickel on the other side of the planet will be told that it is not in our interest to invest in their activities since they are very unfavorable to biodiversity.

By what lever(s) can the economy come to the aid of biodiversity?

Today, companies and local authorities do not necessarily have the adequate means and funding because biodiversity is expensive. Their “number 1” concern is their turnover or for local authorities to meet the needs of citizens. However, at CDC Biodiversité, we explain precisely that by mixing economy and biodiversity, they will be able to get to the heart of their respective objectives. If companies integrate biodiversity into the heart of their model, they will be able to secure their value chain by working with quality producers who respect standards.

Putting direct and indirect added value into all of one's work is at the heart of economists' thinking. This starts with the use of raw materials and energy consumption, but it can go much further, with more indirect actions, such as putting green spaces in offices, which improves the well-being of employees, and by ricochet effect, improves their productivity. A company that cares about its environment is a company that will be more aware of biodiversity issues and will obviously contribute to it on its territorial site. And today, we can clearly see that for the younger generations, committed companies are more attractive. Economically speaking, this commitment therefore also makes sense.

On the side of local authorities, they are trying to see in their budgets which expenses are favorable or unfavorable to biodiversity, in order to target expenses much better. We are moving to a medium and long-term vision that makes it possible to secure, guarantee and even have a logic of economic growth.

Can you give me a concrete example of actions you have carried out with a company?

I have two very good examples for you. Lidl came to see CDC Biodiversité with the observation that their business model is to develop stores and this action necessarily has an impact on biodiversity (the company builds 5 stores per year in France). They are aware that biodiversity is degraded by their actions, so they wanted to remedy this. Especially since the Climate and Resilience law was passed this summer, aiming to achieve the objective of zero net artificialization by 2050. CDC Biodiversité therefore proposed to systematically have a territorial vision, anticipation and planning of their actions.

The idea is to analyze the territories close to the location of the stores and identify areas that require biodiversity restoration actions. We will then implement, on their behalf, “de-artificialization” actions: that is to say, by rebuilding biodiversity in these spaces, we will be able to compensate for the artificialization that will be generated by the creation of the new stores. Beyond these actions, we will also reintegrate biodiversity around their store, for example with green walls, permeable parking lots to allow the small and large water cycle, etc. This is a real commitment for these new stores! We will then concretely measure the impact of the actions carried out by making an inventory of species. We will look at what type of fauna and flora are present, and we will follow these indices over the years and seasons. The comparison must be in favour of renaturation, that is to say that there is more biodiversity recreated than biodiversity destroyed.

The second example is Decathlon , which is a leading textile company in France. They came with a very clear problem, which was that they were unable to precisely identify the impacts they had on biodiversity. At CDC Biodiversité, we are going to measure their biodiversity footprint. To do this, we use scopes, as for the carbon footprint: the upstream scope, the production scope and the downstream scope. These are simple questions, here are a few examples:

• Where do you get your raw materials?
• Are the raw materials sustainable?
• How are these materials processed and how?
• What kind of chemicals do you use?
• What do you do with unsold items?

We ask a lot of questions from which a quantified assessment then results. Then we will define together a quantified objective with recommendations to be able to reduce this biodiversity footprint. We also offer training in the Global Biodiversity Score so that they can monitor the evolution of their biodiversity footprint, each year.

Today, we can observe a real refocusing on biodiversity, whereas before we mainly talked about CO2 and carbon footprint. Decathlon has been able to take this turn, in particular by using organic cotton, by offering water bottles to replace plastic bottles and other judicious examples. There is an awareness at the level of top management, but also of research and innovation, with the desire to reduce the biodiversity footprint. However, these are long-term actions and there is always progress to be made.